(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a system for managing information about electronic equipment having printed-circuit boards, and more particularly to a system for managing information about the stock of structural parts, such as electronic parts and printed-circuit boards, the delivery of the structural parts, the mounting of the electronic parts on equipment frames (shelves), and the shipping of the equipment.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
As is well known, printed-circuit boards on which a large number of electronic parts are mounted are installed in communication devices, such as exchanges, and information processing equipment. In many cases, the finalized printed-circuit boards are mounted on shelves and delivered. The printed-circuit boards may also be called printed wired circuit boards (PWCBs).
Conventionally, the finalized printed-circuit boards are produced by a production process as shown in FIGS. 1(A)-(C). A conventional printed-circuit board production method has a first step of, delivering printed-circuit boards. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) on which electronic parts have been mounted are inserted into predetermined positions of shelves of equipments. The finalized printed-circuit boards are stocked in a finalized printed-circuit board warehouse, and then delivered to an inserting (assembly) step. It takes an extremely long time to check, for each equipment, whether or not all printed circuit boards necessary to produce a printed-circuit board are available in the warehouse, by referring to a diagram showing the names and inserted positions of the printed-circuit board. In order to avoid the above, when it is confirmed that necessary numbers (1, m, . . . , n) of individual printed circuit boards (a, b, . . . , h) produced according to an order which orders a plurality of equipments available in the warehouse, these printed-circuit boards are allowed to be delivered to the subsequent inserting step, as shown in step (A) of FIG. 1.
As Shown on the right-hand side of FIG. 1, the second step of the production process places the delivered printed-circuit boards in predetermined positions in the shelves of the equipments by referring to a specification drawing, and confirms whether or not they are correctly placed in the predetermined positions by referring to the specification drawing.
In the third step (B) of the production process, as shown in FIG. 1(B), the equipments are tested and an operator will see the printed-circuit boards, and records on a recording sheet, which include necessary information about the mounting positions, editions and manufacturer's part numbers of the printed circuit boards. It may be possible to keyboard the necessary information to a computer system.
In the fourth step of the production process, the contents of the printed circuit boards which have been inserted into the shelves are recorded on a shipping list.
In the fifth step (C) of the production process, it is confirmed, by referring to a shipping list as shown in FIG. 1, whether or not each equipment which is about to be shipped to the customer has printed-circuit boards having a requested change of design changed. If it is found that a printed-circuit board which has not been changed is included in the equipment, this equipment cannot be shipped.
However, the first to fifth steps of the conventional production process have the following respective problems. In the first production step, the printed-circuit boards are not delivered to the inserting step until all the printed-circuit boards are prepared and stocked in the warehouse. Thus, it is difficult to efficiently arrange the inserting step and subsequent steps. Particularly, it is very difficult to reduce the periods of the inserting step and subsequent steps.
In the second production step, it is manually checked whether or not the printed circuit boards are correctly placed in the predetermined positions on the shelves of the equipments. Thus, this manual checking procedure does not have a high reliability. Further, the manual checking procedure needs a large number of drawings.
In the third production step, the necessary information is manually recorded on the recording sheets. Hence, this manual recording procedure does not have a high reliability. If it is desired to input the necessary information to a computer system, the keyboarding operation is needed at this time.
The fourth production step needs a large working load, and has a high possibility that the contents of the printed-circuit boards are erroneously recorded on the shipping list.
In the fifth production step, it is determined, by manually referring to the change-of-design list, whether or not each equipment can be shipped. Hence, there is a high possibility that an equipment having a printed-circuit board which has not been changed may be shipped.